Wildcard Friday – Pubcon Conference Takeaways

By Advanced SEO TeamNovember 18, 2011

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Cia60r3hw

Today, I’d like to talk about an event that took place last week and has been getting a lot of press in the SEO world. At last week’s PubCon conference that took place in Las Vegas there was a Q&A session with Google’s very own Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal. If you don’t know who they are, these guys are basically THE AUTHORITY when it comes to anything related to Google’s search engine – they’re treated like rock stars in the SEO world.

So what’s all the fuss about? Whenever they speak at an event like this it’s a pretty big deal –they give some really informative insights into the Google search engine. What they say is typically a good indicator regarding recent algorithm changes as well as some changes they are working on moving forward.

I know that some of this SEO speak can be confusing so I’ve actually taken the liberty of sifting through the information that’s out there and have 3 key takeaways from this session you should apply to your SEO and ecommerce store strategy starting today.

Good Content is REALLY IMPORTANT!

I can’t reiterate this enough. Content IS KING. I’ll say that again. CONTENT IS KING. Google has been emphasizing the importance of content for years now and this will only continue to be an increasingly important aspect to their algorithm.

In order to get to the top of the search engines, you have to show Google that you are providing your visitors with EXACTLY what they are looking for. This means your content must be relevant, valuable, fresh, unique and easy to understand. Be clear with your visitors. A good tip for testing your content is pretending you are visiting your website for the first time and you were brought there from clicking on the #1 ranking page for a specific search term. Is the content relevant to what you are looking for? Does it sound like a robot wrote it? Do you think everyone would be able to understand it? Asking yourselves these types of questions can certainly improve the quality of your content and by extension your search engine rankings.

Ads on your website may be negatively impacting your rankings

With the most recent algorithm changes, we can see that Google is really putting an emphasis on user experience. Cutts and Singhal said that Google’s algorithm is really getting smart at figuring out the different elements on your page. If you have a ton of ads (like the picture) – Google recognizes that this probably negatively impacts a user’s experience on your website and then bumps you down in the search results. To avoid being penalized, try spreading out or limiting the advertisements on your page.

Have some content about the fold!

Above the fold content is a relatively new concept and it seems like Google is really trying to incorporate this into it’s algorithm. Many search marketers assume that Google would value all content on your page the same, regardless of where it was located. As with too many ads on top of the page, if Google sees a whole bunch of content near the bottom of your page, they might assume that content isn’t important and devalue it. If you have important keywords and valuable content on your page, try and get some of it above the fold so the Google spider recognizes your emphasis on the importance of that specific content. I fully expect Google to continue to increase how above the fold content impacts your search engine results.